In case you missed the announcement [1] last week, we have changed the name of CRMGuru.com to CustomerThink.com. Long-time members may recall that our email newsletter was renamed CustomerThink in 2002 (formerly CRM.Insight) because of confusion about what the term "CRM" means.
"CustomerThink" was created by this community [2], so it's your name, not a buzzword that an analyst firm or software vendor invented. Unfortunately, "CRM" has a technology slant that's proven hard to shake [3].
I believe we should look at the past 10 years as the beginning of a golden age of customer management. The focus of most companies has been to improve customer information management. Not a bad start. But now it's become clear that the customer experience is incredibly important to deliver strategic benefits [4] because great experiences build loyalty. Automation doesn't.
But there's much more coming! Technology is hardly irrevelant when you consider the rise of Web 2.0 [5], which is empowering customers with blogs, social networking, wikis and more.
I launched CRMGuru.com in 2000 to create a forum to help business leaders learn how to create better relationships for customers, and profitable growth for the enterprise. Call it CRM, CEM or just plain common sense, that's still our mission [6].
I've included some member reactions to this change below. Please add your comments, too!